Adam Bradley specializes in strange bedfellows.
In his new analysis of hip-hop lyrics, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, the author asserts that rap has helped bring about a renaissance of the word, returning rhythm, rhyme and wordplay to our daily lives.
In the book, the Harvard Ph.D. draws parallels between b-boy culture and the so-called literary world. One of his odd couplets is Notorious B.I.G.s Hope You Niggas Sleep (Niggas just cant understand it/I bust a cap for the brothers in Nap Nap, Comstock, and Clinton/You know my shit is hitting) and Emily Dickinsons I Cannot Live With You (I could not die with you/For one must wait/To shut the others gaze down/You could not). Then theres Lil Waynes Im a Beast (Make a list of yo boys/And go and murder them all/Life is short, yeah a midget told me that) and Shakespeares Macbeth (Those he commands move only in command/Nothing in love/Now does he feel his title/Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe/Upon a dwarfish thief.
Shit, who knew history repeated itself?
Mon., May 18, 7 p.m., 2009